2019 California Fellowship

Taught by prize-winning journalists, community health leaders, policy analysts and healthcare experts, the 2019 California Fellowship will focus on two broad themes:

How neighborhood life, social inequities, race, education and the environment influence health, and

Changes in the healthcare landscape. We will focus attention on the enormous implications for California of the effort by President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Fellowship includes a $1,000 reporting stipend to participating journalists to defray costs associated with ambitious reporting projects. For the 2019 Fellowship, we're most interested in projects that focus on health disparities, the social determinants of health, barriers to healthcare access for the safety net population, domestic and/or community violence as public health problems, community conditions (e.g. environmental toxins or slum housing) that contribute to health problems and the promise of healthcare innovation. Up to two California Fellows will receive grants of up to $3,500 for reporting Fellowship projects that focus on the health, wellbeing of children in Los Angeles County through age 5, including such topics as the importance of healthy nutrition from conception on; disparities in the provision of prenatal care; the early diagnosis of development problems; school readiness; models of parenting education; the effects of trauma during childhood; and how public systems, including health and child welfare, serve children in this age group. The resulting stories can appear in an outlet with a local, statewide or national audience.

In addition, five California Fellows will be chosen to receive an additional grant of $1,000 to $2,000 for community engagement, specialized mentoring. [Click here to learn more about our community engagement initiative, and click here for a FAQ on the engagement grants.]

During five days of field trips, workshops and seminars, Fellows will learn about new data sources, hear about effective community engagement strategies and gain new perspectives on pressing health issues. During the Fellowship week, Fellows will also get plenty of time to discuss with experts, and with each other, strategies for covering health news with authority and sophistication. We will also bring in editors, at our expense, for an in-depth project conference. Fellows will return home with great sources and new ideas for how to tell complex health stories. Fellows also will receive six months of one-on-one mentoring from veteran journalists who guide them through work on major Fellowship projects.

Click here for a list of the 2018 California Fellows and links to their profiles and blog posts about their reporting projects.

Who Can Apply:

USC Annenberg is looking for journalists who think big and want to produce stories that have an impact.

This Fellowship is open to professional journalists from print, broadcast, and online media throughout California, including freelancers. Applicants do not need to be full-time health reporters, but should have a demonstrated interest in health issues, broadly defined to include the health of communities. General assignments reporters as well as those who cover local government, the environment, crime, homelessness and education will benefit.

We prefer that applicants have a minimum of three years of professional experience; many have decades. Journalists writing for ethnic media are strongly encouraged to apply. Proposals for collaborative projects between mainstream and ethnic news outlets receive preference, as do projects produced for co-publication or co-broadcast in both mainstream and ethnic news outlets. Freelancers who apply should earn the majority of their income from journalism. Applicants must be based in the United States. Students and interns are ineligible.

Knowledge and Skills: During field trips and seminars, participants hear from respected investigative journalists and leaders in community health, health policy and medicine.

Workshops provide practical reporting tips, expert sources, community engagement strategies and informed policy perspectives on the circumstances that shape health or ill health in communities across America. Participants also gain insights into how to document health and demographic trends in their local communities through innovative storytelling and data visualization techniques.

Financial Support and Mentoring: California Fellows each receive a reporting stipend of $1,000 to offset the costs of ambitious investigative and explanatory journalism. Journalism fellows also receive six months of mentoring from senior journalists as they usher their projects to completion.

How to Apply

Click here for details about what we're looking for in your application.

All applications must be submitted through our online application, which will be activated in mid November. Note: If you encounter technical problems when you're trying to apply, please email [email protected].

Clickto access the supplemental application for a Community Engagement grant. Only journalists who are selected for the California Fellowship will be eligible to receive a Community Engagement grant.

Announcements

Got a great idea for an ambitious reporting project on a California health issue? Let us fund it. Apply now for the 2019 California Fellowship, which provides $1,000 reporting grants and six months of expert mentoring to 20 journalists, community engagement grants of up to $2,000, specialized mentoring, to five.